Ukrainian authorities and Greenpeace are investigating the Chernobyl area, which was occupied by Russia in March. The result was more than three times the radiation values compared to the estimate of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
KIEV Russia’s attack on the containment zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the occupation of the area have had a significant negative impact on the environment. This is what an international research group says, which presented the results of its radiation measurements today, Wednesday, in Kyiv.
The group includes experts from Greenpeace in Germany, the Environmental Center of Ukraine and the Chernobyl Protection Zone Control Agency.
Radiation values were measured using drones and soil samples. The researchers noticed that even in a small area the values differed greatly. According to them, it is related to the fact that Russian soldiers have cultivated the soil, dug the ground and traveled with heavy military equipment.
The Environmental Center of Ukraine considers it extremely worrying that outsiders have entered the contaminated area without supervision. Director of the center Serhiy Kireev says that the radiation values measured at automatic measuring stations were many times higher compared to normal during the occupation.
Kireev also considers the forest fires that arose due to the fighting around Chernobyl to be very dangerous. It was very difficult to extinguish them because of the radiation danger and the mines, says Kireev.
Trenches and camps in the buffer zone
Russian soldiers occupied the Chernobyl area for 35 days in February-March. According to media reports, some of the soldiers were not even aware of the nuclear power plant accident in the area.
According to Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom and Reuters, soldiers built trenches and fortifications in the most contaminated area, called the Red Forest. However, the representative of the nuclear power plant interviewed by in May denied the claim.
The environmental organization Greenpeace has studied satellite images that reveal that Russian soldiers dug trenches near the power plant and set up camps in the contaminated area.
It has not come to the attention of the Ukrainian authorities that the Russian soldiers who were in Chernobyl needed medical treatment due to radiation. However, the authorities emphasize that the consequences for health may come with a delay.
Director General of the Chernobyl Protection Zone Control Agency Yevhen Kramarenko says that Russian soldiers have handled nuclear waste without the necessary expertise. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, there were up to 1,000 Russian soldiers in the Chernobyl exclusion zone and up to 30 in the nuclear waste repository at the same time.
Ukraine dissatisfied with the measurements of the International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA made measurements in Chernobyl at the end of April. According to the organization, radiation values were high during the occupation, but they are no longer a threat to the environment or people.
However, the Ukrainian leadership doubted the impartiality of the investigation, as the deputy director of the IAEA is a long-time employee of Rosenergoatom, a subsidiary of the Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom Mikhail Chudakov. Although the head of the IAEA Rafael Grossi assured that Chudakov, for example, would not report to the Russian government, Ukraine decided to start its own investigations.
According to Greenpeace, the IAEA’s risk assessment was incomplete.
– The International Atomic Energy Agency seems reluctant to recognize the radiation dangers in Chernobyl and the effects of the Russian occupation on them, says the radiation expert of Greenpeace Germany Shaun Burnie.
The values measured in the new samples were more than three times higher than the IAEA’s previous estimate.
Now the concern is the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant
Greenpeace is concerned about the destruction caused by war to nature.
– War is a terrible danger not only for the people of Ukraine, but also for the environment. We have personally witnessed that many years of scientific work has been destroyed in Chernobyl. Many measuring devices have either been broken or stolen, so safety monitoring has become more difficult, regrets the head of Greenpeace Germany’s radiation department in an interview with Thomas Breuer.
He considers the fact that the Russians are currently occupying the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Enerhodar very dangerous for the security of all of Europe.
– It’s a ticking time bomb. If something happens there, the consequences are far-reaching. It is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, so the accident there would be bigger than Chernobyl.
According to the security service, Russia violated the rules defined in the Geneva Convention by establishing a military base in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. In the contract say (you switch to another service)that nuclear power plants may not be targeted with armed action if it might cause danger to the civilian population.